We Love xkcd

You  may remember the Discovery Channel’s very popular jingle I Love the World. Randall Munroe of xkcd was inspired and did his own version featuring memes from his webcomic. Then Elaine Doyle and Olga Nunes produced a video that recreates xkcd’s comic using the original tune, featuring a cast of prominent and not-so-prominent bloggers.

Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Bruce Schneier, Jason Kottke, Google Zurich, Hank Green, MC Frontalot, Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Mr. Toast, Miss Cellania, Team Genius, Phil Plait, Allan Amato, Maddy Gaiman, Charissa Gilreath, Belinda Casas, Chuck Martinez, Jeremy James, Joanna Gaunder, Lee Israel & Octavio Coleman Esq. of The Jejune Institute

Yours Truly and daughters sang the first Boomdeyada. You’ll find a complete listing of who’s who line by line at Olga’s site.


“Parisian Love”: Possible Google Superbowl Ad?

Even though Google’s true business as always been about advertising, the company mostly stayed away from the biggest ad medium of them all, television. However, it seems that the search giant will be airing an ad during the biggest TV event of the season: Superbowl XLIV Yesterday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt posted a short message on Twitter:

Can’t wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said “Hell has indeed frozen over.”)

A lot of people are speculating about which ad the company will be using for their spot, but the rumors seem to be pointing toward this very cute clip: Parisian Love.

[Image source: Flickr (CC)]

Neil Gaiman Penned Doctor Who Episode Coming in 2011

Neil GaimanThere has been a rumor for some time that Neil Gaiman would be writing an episode of Doctor Who (now under the helm of Steven Moffat), but when his name didn’t appear in the list of 2010 writers, many thought it wasn’t to be. However, while accepting an award for his Batman comic at SFX Awards 2010, Gaiman confirmed that he has indeed written an episode but that it won’t be airing until 2011 due to budgetary issues. In other words, maybe there’s going to be a big-budget episode? Awesome.

Considering that Moffat has written some of the creepiest episodes of Doctor Who to date (the weeping angels of “Blink” come to mind, as do the gas masks of “The Empty Child”), combining him with Gaiman might well be the holy grail of scifi horror. Fourteen months seems like an awfully long time…

[Via Bleeding Cool]

[Image Source: .guilty (CC)]

Game Over for Original Xbox Online

Microsoft is finally withdrawing the Xbox LIVE online gaming service for owners of the original Xbox (ie, not the 360). The move will also mean the withdrawal of online play for Xbox titles played through the Xbox 360.

The firm isn’t giving too much detail about the reasons for the change, but says it’s related to forthcoming improvements to the Xbox 360 service which will be incompatible with the way original Xbox games are handled online.

The best guess would be that Xbox LIVE is being redesigned to add support to the motion control features of Project Natal. It’s also possible that some of the structures put in place at the initial launch of the service are simply inadequate in the 360 era: for example, the limit of 100 people on the online friends list may now be raised.

The service will be withdrawn from April 15. However, customers who only use the original Xbox will have their auto-renewals switched off immediately. Those affected by the changes should be getting messages through their LIVE account or e-mail in the next few weeks.

The strongest reaction to the news appears to be from dedicated fans of Halo 2, the best selling game on the original console and at one point the most popular online Xbox game for nearly two years. Speculation at the moment points to it being added to the Arcade section of Xbox Live or even being re-released for the Xbox360.

The news won’t be particularly welcome for people who’ve recently downloaded original Xbox games to their 360 with the intention of playing them online.

Whether the change is fair or reasonable is certainly open to argument. Owners of the original console may feel aggrieved at the move, particularly given that rival Sony still supports the 10-year-old PS2. Defenders of Microsoft would note that ditching some form of support for older products to concentrate on the latest systems is a well-established part of its business strategy.

Stormtroopers and Snoop Wear Adidas

Adidas Skywalker Shoes

Q: What do Snoop Dogg, David Beckham, and Star Wars all have in common?
A: Shoes.

Adidas is launching a line of Star Wars shoes, and somehow the obvious spokespeople are a rapper and a soccer player. In any case, today saw Darth Vader and a group of stormtroopers along with people in Adidas jumpsuits (who rather looked as if they were being escorted to their execution) marching through Times Square. They were there to hang with Snoop for the product launch at the NYC Adidas store.

There’s probably some joke in here about sneakers being invaluable for Star Wars geeks running from bullies in high school.